


Constructive Interference

by letstalkabouttrek



Series: Wavelengths [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Canonical Character Death, Crying, Dealing With Your Bullshit, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Protective Bots, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3945544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letstalkabouttrek/pseuds/letstalkabouttrek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark gets by (with a little help from his friends).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bots

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally the start of a series of short works, but I decided it actually worked very well as a first chapter for the reworked sequel to "Oscillations". As it's currently planned, this story will have 4 chapters - the Bots, Pepper, Rhodey, and Bruce. Reading "Oscillations" first isn't necessary, but it does make a few small things make more sense, especially for Bruce's chapter.

The workshop was utterly trashed.

Broken glass and shards of metal littered the floor and most of the surfaces, remnants of both Vision’s dramatic birth and Ultron’s obvious disregard for proper safety and cleanliness procedures. There was a hole in the floor, papers (which were mostly Bruce’s because the man had a ridiculous insistence on physically writing things down) were strewn across the room, and most of the equipment within a ten foot radius of the wrecked cradle had at least one dent or crack in it.

It wasn’t the worst Tony had ever seen his haven – he’d definitely wreaked more havoc by himself with a few not-entirely-planned explosions – but it was bad. Knowing that the wreckage before him was nothing compared to the other devastation he had – however inadvertently – caused, well… that was worse.

Really, Tony probably shouldn’t have even been up here. He was running on over 60 hours without sleep, his vision was definitely starting to blur, he felt like one giant bruise, and his sore muscles complained with every step he took; by all means he should want nothing more than a hot shower, a drink, and to fall into a long, blissful sleep in his sinfully comfortable bed before he woke back up and had to start facing the aftermath. But, for whatever reason, he had felt compelled to come to the one place he knew would offer nothing but reminders of the past few hellish days.

As he stood surveying the destruction, he was suddenly yanked forward, and he would have fell flat on his face if he hadn’t caught himself on the edge of the cradle, giving himself what he was sure would be a nasty bruise in the process.

Tony continued to be pulled along and had to stumble along, his muscles screaming at him for the awkward movement. Once he snapped out of his disorientation he saw Dummy, claw latched onto his shirt in a death grip, rolling in front of him and dragging him like a stubborn dog on a leash.

“Whoa, boy, what’s going on? I’d ask where the fire is but we all already know about your skills with the fire extinguisher,” Tony said, but all he got was a series of aggressive chirps as his bot continued to lead him towards the back corner of the shop, taking a twisted and convoluted path as he avoided the debris that his treads couldn’t roll over.

Tony almost fell over twice more before Dummy finally came to a stop in front of the master control panel, swiveling so his camera looked up at Tony and he gave one final chirp, gesturing toward the panel with his claw. 

“What do you want, Dummy? Did the power to your charging station get cut off?” He was really not in the state of mind to be playing bot translator right now, and understanding Dummy on the best of days was always hit and miss. 

The bot chirped again in a way Tony would almost describe as _annoyed_ , tapping the control panel with his claw before gesturing towards the ceiling.

“What’s on the…” Tony glanced upward before the realization hit him, digging a hole in his chest right where the arc reactor used to be. “You want me to bring JARVIS back online. Oh, Dummy…”

Dummy had perked up upon hearing JARVIS’s name, tapping the panel a few more times as he swiveled his camera in a rough approximation of a nod. He rolled a few feet to the side, moving out of the way so Tony could access the panel. 

“Dummy, J isn’t offline, he’s…” he paused, not sure if he didn’t know how to finish the sentence or he just didn’t want to. “He’s gone. He isn’t coming back.” And yeah, wow, it was definitely the latter because just saying it made the fact far more real than Tony had ever wanted it to be, making it really sink in for the first time that he would never hear his AI’s voice again.

But it was obvious that his bot didn’t get the point, as he just continued to gesture towards the panel. The helper bots’ vocal command recognition had always been a bit screwy, especially Dummy’s, and they had relied on JARVIS’s superior systems to translate Tony’s orders into simpler code for them. 

Tony tried to sigh, but it turned into a choked sob halfway through and no, those were _definitely_ not tears forming in his eyes, he was _fine_. “He’s not there, boy. I can’t bring him back.” The sound of his own voice was shocking, like he had been gargling with gravel. “I’m, sorry, but I can’t bring him back.”

Before he really understood what was happening, Tony had fallen to the floor, leaning against the wall one he pulled himself into a sitting position. He really was sobbing now and _fuck_ this would be embarrassing if there was anyone around to see him, but he didn’t care, didn’t have the energy to choke back the tears. The floor of the workshop was cold underneath him, but it was thankfully clear, this part of the room having avoided most of the earlier chaos. He placed his palms against the freezing surface, hoping it would ground him and stave off the sickening feeling of unreality that was settling into the pit of his stomach.

He felt a jab on the side of his ribcage, and sure enough Dummy was beside him, tilting his camera in an inquisitive manner while he prodded Tony all over, sending jabs of pain through his battered body. _He thinks I’m hurt,_ Tony realized, _he’s trying to check me for injuries. _“No, Dummy, I’m fine,” he said, though he could barely get the words out through his rapidly closing throat. “I’m fine, I promise, _shit_ , I’m sorry.”__

__Dummy suddenly stopped poking him and chirped twice, quick and serious, and Tony stared, wondering what was going on before another set of chirps answered and a glass was shoved in front of his face from the opposite direction. A few wayward drops of green dripped onto his shirt as You waved the smoothie in front of him, urging him to take it._ _

__“No, You, I don’t want a smoothie, I already-“ _ate_ , he was going to finish, but then he stopped and realized it had probably been at least 12 hours since he’s ingested anything besides water and electrolyte packets. “Okay, fine, I’ll take the smoothie.” He reached out, willing his shaking hands to still, and took the glass, the smooth, cool surface aggressively and blissfully _present_. “But maybe,” he began, voice still raw and unsteady, “I could also get something a bit more alcoholic?” _ _

__He hoped that You would be able to understand what he was asking, and sure enough, the bot rolled off to where Tony kept the shop’s supply of liquor. He refused to think about the implications of his bots understanding his need for booze above other basic words._ _

__As You rolled off, Dummy poked him again, pointing towards the smoothie in his hands. Tony obediently took a sip, and it was surprisingly good, definitely one of You’s better unassisted efforts. Realizing how hungry he actually was, he swallowed down the rest at an alarming rate, the cold settling in his stomach in a way that was altogether not unpleasant._ _

__He was just setting down the empty glass beside him when You rolled back, a bottle of something amber carefully clutched in his claw. Tony grabbed it and took a few greedy swigs, before setting it down and taking a deep breath. He knew he probably looked like shit, and he could feel the tears drying on his face, leaving behind an itchy layer of salt. He fought to keep his breathing steady, counting down from fifty, before reaching for the bottle again._ _

__He’d only managed one more sip before You came and took it out of his hand, rolling back towards the liquor cabinet._ _

__“Hey, you bucket of bolts, I was drinking-“ Tony was cut off as Dummy once again gripped his shirt, yanking him to his feet as his entire body protested, and dragged him towards the cot he kept in the workshop in case of weeklong engineering benders. He didn’t have the energy or mental presence to protest as the bot pushed him until he was sitting on the edge, clumsily pulled off his shoes, and poked him in the side until he got the message and laid down._ _

__“Dummy, this really isn’t necessary, I can get back to the elevator just fine,” he tried to get up, but Dummy just set his claw on top of Tony’s chest, gently pushing down until he acquiesced and laid down again. You rolled up with a blanket, and the two bots worked together to cover Tony before chirping in satisfaction and situating themselves on either side of the cot._ _

__Tony wanted to protest more, but the cot felt far more comfortable than he remembered it and the blanket was soft against his skin and he could feel his eyes getting heavy as a fog started to fill his mind, pulling him under into sleep._ _

__The last thing he saw before the blackness was Dummy and You, standing vigil at his bedside._ _


	2. Pepper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Tony's POV and his and Pepper's relationship in general is interesting, and something I haven't really done a lot of. But I love to two of them together.

The Tower felt empty without JARVIS.

Some might have argued that the sense of emptiness came from the sudden lack of flesh-and-blood people, the Avengers having officially relocated over a month ago. But the feeling that settled into Tony’s chest, deep and hollow where the arc reactor used to sit, had started before that, when the common areas and training rooms were still regular hubs of activity. 

Even when he wasn’t alone in the giant penthouse – when Pepper slept by his side on the nights she was in town, or Rhodey flew down for beers and shop talk on the weekends, or Steve (and, sometimes, surprisingly, Natasha) dropped in unexpectedly to “see how he was doing” – the ache was there, a constant undercurrent. And Tony knew – knew for a fact, one hundred percent certified, bona fide, absolute _genius_ knew, knew in his heart, in his bones, in his soul, his gut, his kidneys, or whatever other organs people knew things in – that it was because of JARVIS’s absence. 

It wasn’t that Friday wasn’t a suitable AI – she was one of his, after all, and that automatically made her better than basically anything else in the world – but she was young. Even with all the same base protocols as JARVIS, freshly updated to boot, she didn’t have his experience, the two decades of existing beside Tony that had made JARVIS, well… JARVIS. You couldn’t program personality into a self-learning AI; it would defeat the entire purpose. They had to be, for lack of a better term, grown organically.

The workshop was where he felt the loss the most, as his voice reverberated around the room waiting for banter and comebacks that wouldn’t come. Friday answered his questions with a brusque efficiency that reminded him of Pepper back in the old days, Before Afghanistan. There were no shared jokes, no snarky comments when Tony was about to do something spectacularly reckless, no surprisingly insightful heart-to-hearts.

Most people didn’t realize that Tony hadn’t just lost a helpful computer program; he’d lost on of his best friends, one who had been there for longer than anyone besides Rhodey.

Dummy and You tried to make up for the loss, scurrying around the shop and badgering him, bringing him shakes and, on a few memorable occasions, food that was practically edible. But the bots were feeling the gap themselves, and their limited programming left them unable to process Tony’s more complex behaviors without JARVIS’s more sophisticated protocols backing them up. On bad days, the familiar sounds of their chirps and beeps and the clicking of their claws were more agitating than soothing – a reminder of the hole that had been torn in their small family. 

Even with AC/DC blasting through the workshop speakers, the silence was deafening.

Pepper noticed how edgy he was, noticed right away – although whether that was because he was getting worse at hiding things from her or she had just been watching him with extra scrutiny, paying careful attention to make sure he didn’t crack without her knowing again, he couldn’t tell. Tony knew that the past few years had been hard on him, and therefore ridiculously hard on Pepper by extension. She hadn’t been happy about him coming out of retirement after the fall of SHIELD, but she had understood and supported him every step of the way. He could tell that she wanted this time to be more permanent, to let the two of them have some room to breathe for the first time in years.

She had given Tony a lot, more than he probably – no, more than he _definitely_ \- deserved, and he was trying to pay that back with honesty.

Which was why now, four months after what he had been personally referring to as the Ultron Incident (and seriously, how screwed up was his life that he had so many capital-I-Incidents that he had to differentiate them further? Weren’t you supposed to have just one?), Tony Stark was sitting down, proactively, of his own volition, to talk about _feelings_.

He really wanted a drink. 

But, no, he knew that would make things worse. He’d scaled back his alcohol consumption considerably after the whole “let’s go on a massive bender because I’m dying” thing, but the temptation to get blissfully wasted was always there, especially during the times when his brain just wouldn’t turn off. That was another thing that was great about Pepper; she never judged him for wanting a drink, but was always ready to suggest when he didn’t _need_ one, and she usually was right.

So Tony was stone-cold sober, sitting and waiting for Pepper to get home from the office. He’d been in the workshop most of the day, tinkering with the models and simulations for the next arc reactor expansion, but his nerves had taken his mind from it, and by four o’clock or so he’d given up. The last time he had asked Friday for a time update, it was six thirteen. 

Finally, the chime of the elevator informed him that Pepper had arrived, and he looked up to see her taking off her heels, ditching them by the doors. She seemed slightly surprised to see Tony sitting at the kitchen table (and he would admit that he _was_ usually still in the workshop when she got home, but that was because he lost track of time), but only glanced his way as she continued to put her things away, everything in its place. Pepper took the same meticulous care with living spaces that Tony generally only took with his shop; it was a point of contention between them.

“I had a meeting with the Board today and I’m pretty sure Steadman was asleep for the entirety of it,” she said. “I swear that one day one of them is going to drop dead at the table and no one will notice; half of them are old enough.” 

Tony laughed. Or tried to, because _fuck_ that came out way more forced than he thought it would, somewhere between a bark and a squeak. Pepper’s eyes snapped to his face immediately, scrutinizing his expression with the same analyzing look she gave contracts and government officials, before it immediately softened and Tony had to try his hardest not to look away because now he _knew_ that he must look like shit.

“Tony, is everything alright?” she asked, striding over to him as quickly as she could without actually running. She paused when she got to the table, and he could tell that she was trying to read his expression and choose her approach, figure out what he needed from her. Tony would have tried to be helpful, but he didn’t really know what he needed from her either.

She eventually (and Tony really didn’t know how long the moment lasted – it could have been seconds, it could have been minutes) decided on sitting across from him, not crowding his space but easily within reach over the small table.

He let out a breath that he hadn’t even been aware that he was holding. “I just wanted to, you know, um… talk?” It came out like more of a question than he’d intended, and _God_ , was that really his voice, he sounded like he’d swallowed gravel, fuck he was panicking wasn’t he, he could hear his heart beating out of his chest and his throat definitely felt smaller than it had been a minute ago and-

“Please just tell me you’re not dying again.” Pepper’s voice, low and serious, snapped him out of his head.

“What? Oh, no, not dying, definitely not, fit as a fiddle, no dying here, promise. What, do you think I only want to talk when I’m dying?” _Wait, shit, did that sound accusatory?_ “I mean, that’s fair, yeah, that’s totally fair, based on my track record, history, all that, but no, I’m not dying.”

Pepper laid her hand out, palm up, on the table, and Tony grabbed it on instinct. “Look at me, Tony,” she said, gentle but firm in a way that made him instantly do as she said. “Breathe with me, okay? In and out.” He focused in on the sound of her breathing, the regular rise and fall of her chest, and slowly he felt some of the tension leave his body, his own exhales becoming steady and even. The two of them sat there for a moment, before Pepper lightly squeezed his hand. “You okay?”

A warm feeling filled Tony’s chest, beating back the icy grip of the panic and seeping into the hollow void he had felt for the last four months, just enough to bring a hint of feeling back into the edges of the numbness. He was overcome by how utterly amazing Pepper was, and how much he really did not deserve her.

He felt his face break into a smile – a small one, probably barely noticeable, but there. “Yeah, I’m good.”

”You wanted to talk?” Pepper’s voice was calm, but Tony could hear the undercurrent of worry that it held, and he knew he needed to convince her that nothing dire or life-threatening was happening. Given everything that had gone on, it was a legitimate concern.

“Yeah, about… stuff, you know.” He had no idea how to do this. “I know you’ve been trying to give me space, not push me, and I’m grateful, really. I know I tend to send out ‘fuck off’ vibes whenever anything resembling actual human emotion comes up and I’m not great at the whole ‘communication’ thing and I’ve needed the time, probably, to work stuff out…”

He was rambling, he knew he was rambling, but the words kept pouring out. Tony prided himself on being a master of bullshit and deflection of all kinds – it was what had gotten him through life – but trying to be honest was a hell of a lot harder. No matter how long Pepper stayed by his side, there would always be a part of him waiting for her to realize how much better she could do and leave.

“So anyway, I know when shit is bothering me you notice and it bothers you, and I’m trying to be better with this, turn over a new leaf and all that, so I thought we could talk. About our problems, which are really just my problems, or whatever it is people talk about.”

There was a beat of silence, and Tony had to resist the urge to drum the fingers of his free hand on the table, just to give himself something to focus on.

“Okay, first of all,” Pepper said, “your problems _are_ our problems. That’s what being in a relationship is, and I knew that going in. You are not a burden to me when you’re dealing with things.” 

Yeah, this honesty thing was getting very uncomfortable very fast. Tony had to use all of his energy not to avert his gaze from Pepper, and he opened his mouth to make a witty comment to lighten the mood before he remembered _wait, not supposed to be deflecting_ and snapped it closed again. 

“Okay,” was all he could trust himself to say.

Pepper sighed, but it was one of her fond sighs, the kind she used when Tony did something exasperating yet romantic, which was very confusing because he was pretty sure he was only being exasperating at the moment. “I want you to be able to talk to me. I know that…” she paused, trying to find the right words, “the life that you’ve lived has made it hard for you to be open about things, especially vulnerability.”

Tony couldn’t help but snort a little at that. He supposed that “the life that he’d lived” was one way to put “an alcoholic distant father, being raised by the butler and orphaned at twenty-one, seventeen years as a borderline-alcoholic arms dealer, half a dozen near-death experiences, and a metric fuckton of post-traumatic stress”. 

“The fact that you want to talk, that you _initiated_ a talk… it’s honestly something I thought I would have to wait a lot longer for. And whatever brought this on, I am proud of you for working to get to this point.” She smiled, gently squeezing his hand again. “So what was it that you wanted to talk about?”

Tony could feel the panic start to settle back, and he forced himself to focus on the feeling of Pepper’s hand in his, soft against his calluses. He took one more deep breath, and said, “You know how things have been kind of different, since JARVIS was killed?”

It felt like a dam breaking. Tony could hear the flood of words coming out of his mouth, talking about loneliness and rage and grief and all the other bullshit that made him want to make a new suit and go blast the hell out of bad guys, but he didn’t really process them. He wasn’t even sure that they made sense, but since Pepper didn’t stop him he decided to go on, the sentences forming in a way that would probably have made grade school English teachers cringe as he forced them out as fast as he could. He went through JARVIS, the bots, Bruce, Rhodey, his parents… Tony was pretty sure that even Clint freaking Barton and his super-secret family were featured somewhere in his rambling. 

It went on for what seemed like ages, and it wasn’t until he felt Pepper wipe a tear off of his face that Tony even realized that he’d been crying.

The room fell silent when he stopped talking, and Tony’s eyes fell to his lap, unsure if he wanted to see Pepper’s reaction. He heard the scrape of her chair against the floor as she got up, saw her move in his peripheral vision as she walked around the table, and for a brief moment his mind screamed at him that she was leaving, that she had seen past his bullshit and bravado and was finally wising up and getting out, when he felt her arms wrap tightly around his shoulders.

The two of them stayed like that for a long moment, Pepper gently tracing the lines of scars she had memorized on Tony’s chest through his shirt. By the time his breathing had calmed down to a slow, steady pace, she had fully circled where the arc reactor had been and followed each dark line the palladium had etched onto his skin. Tony felt her grab his hand and pull gently, and he followed her lead and stood, where she promptly pulled him into a full embrace.

Pepper’s hair smelled like vanilla and brown sugar, or at the very least that was what he thought her shampoo bottle said, and her hair smelled nice so Tony assumed that was it. “I love you,” she said, her voice low and soft, close enough that he could feel her breath ghost across his ear. “You are an amazing man, Tony, and I know for a fact that what you just did was one of the bravest things you’ve ever done.”

“So we’re good?” Tony asked, too wiped out to hate how pleading his voice sounded.

Pepper let out a small laugh against his neck, hugging him tight before stepping back. “I don’t know, Mr. Stark, you still haven’t given me the technical analysis reports for the Chicago expansion,” she teased, pressing a light kiss to his lips before turning to walk towards the bedroom. “You might just have to make that up to me.”

Tony felt himself smile at that.

They were good.

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest this got more emotional that I had intended it to be, but I hope you enjoyed.


End file.
